Review – Figma – Stand Alone Complex Motoko Kusanagi

Ghost in the Shell’s Motoko Kusanagi is kind of a hard one to pin down for a real “definitive look”. Unlike a lot of anime, cartoon, or even comic characters, she has had a pretty wide array of styles over her various movies and shows. There is a general theme of “tough” and “short purple hair”. Aside from that there have been a variety of tactical suits, jackets, and various spandex sort of outfits. This particular figure is based on the Stand Alone Complex Anime series. Stand Alone complex is an alternate timeline version of the story from the popular movie and manga, Ghost in the Shell.

There aren’t any particularly great figures of Motoko from the original series from what I can tell. I haven’t really seen any of Stand Alone complex though I like the original movie and have read some of the manga. Of the various versions of Motoko available, I felt this one more capture the essence of what I personally think of as the character, though this design feels “younger” and a bit more, anime, for lack of a better term, than I’d really prefer.

It’s a decent design though and the sculpt and articulations are pretty clean. There’s something a little funny going on with the articulation I can’t quite place though. It works well enough for posing, but she kind of looks a little wonkey in some poses, like things don’t quite line up naturally.

Motoko includes 5 sets of hands in various poses, a Figma stand, three faces (smiling, frowning, yelling), two hairs (one is “windswept”), a pistol, an assault rifle, and an extra set of boobs. I’m not entirely sure about the boobs, I think one is slightly larger but they look really the same. Several of the hands are pretty specialized around holding the weapons, in particular the special right hands for holding each gun.

Figma Motoko has a problem I’ve encountered with the few Figma toys that I do have. Her hair falls off way to easily. If you lean her forward at all the hair has a good chance of slipping right off her face. It’s a good sized chunk, so it’s easy to find if it falls, but it’s kind of a nuisance.

So overall verdict, it’s an alright figure, like a lot of the line, but it’s not quite the version of The Major I wish I had. I’m kind of hoping that the live action Ghost in the Shell movie will see a bit of a resurgence in merchandise and some more, better figures. I’d love to get a Batou to go with Motko. I am also kind of surprised there aren’t more SH Figuarts from Ghost in the Shell, considering Bandai makes Figuarts and owns the rights to GitS. That’s probably one of those screwy “The media company is different than the products company” deals.